Burning Horn Buds

Well my kids are not here yet but I did some breeding in Peacham with the Davies family's beautiful Nubians and their kids were born two weeks ago. They have very high quality Nubian does but they aren't registered. The farm they came from is out of business but luckily their breeding is still in the Nubian herd book and looked like a good out-cross for my goats. I decided to ad two of these kids to my herd and register them as "Native on Appearance" in the ADGA registry.

They are lovely, as I knew they would be, and a nice addition. We went to see them and burn their horn buds the other night. I chose two because with my goats still waiting to kid, I have no idea what I will get. If I get two large single bucks I won't be keeping them and a lone little Davies doe wouldn't be big enough to go in with the big girls for a while after all the little guys would be gone. Goats do not like to be kept alone. This way my Davies does will have each other as they grow big enough to stay with my other goats.

We have had some terrible car trouble which prevented me from going out when the kids were born. Kate told me she thought they were about a week early but it didn't register with me that it meant I could safely delay horn bud burning. Two weeks went by without being able to get out to take care of those horn buds and I was in a bit of a panic. If you burn too late it's a mess and not really all that reliable. You want to burn buds in the first week, usually. At around fourteen days when we finally went out, I was relieved to find healthy babies with tiny, brand new horn buds. Really, if I had gone out before they wouldn't be developed enough to burn. So, all my worry was for nothing.

We picked our two beautiful babies...Julianna (she looks like Julius) and Fiona. It was dark so I didn't get pictures yet but those will be coming soon. I'm very excited to have the opportunity to ad stone pillars farm bloodlines to mine and see what they produce. I am also adding Jesta Farm Arabella from Michelle Pike in Cabot so we will have enough milk. Arabella is probably going to be one of my favourite goats of all times--she is beautiful, productive AND sweet. Michelle does a great job making her animals a pleasure to handle.

I used a non-electric horn bud burner to do the job this time...actually my husband did the burning because I need reading glasses to do it now (I hate getting old). I held the kids swaddled in a towel. I must admit that I was nervous using the non electric burner for the first time but was very pleased with the results! We got a solid copper ring right away without worrying about brain damage because the burner is cooling the entire time you are using it. It gets very hot. It only took 5 or 6 seconds per horn though it did need to be re-heated for each bud. I brought clippers and shaved their heads so we could be sure to burn in the right place. I don't know how anyone does that job without clipping to expose the buds. This is always traumatic for everyone involved but once it's over the little guys get right up and frolic around like nothing ever happened. I really think I prefer this burner to my old rhinehart. The only down side is the need for a torch in the barn...which made me nervous.